This invention relates to stringed sports racquets, and is particularly concerned with a device for straightening the strings of an already strung and tensioned racquet, for example so that they extend in an appropriate orthogonal arrangement.
Many sports, such as tennis, squash and badminton use stringed racquets to hit a ball in the course of a game. The racquet typically has an elongated handle surmounted by a head which has a stringed planar surface adapted to hit the ball. Generally the head comprises a substantially circular or ovoid frame of wood or metal which supports an orthogonal array of interwoven, tensioned strings. Each opening between adjacent strings in the array is frequently a rectangle having sides of approximately 1 cm, but some variation in size and shape of such openings occurs between different sizes of racquets, i.e. as used for squash and tennis, and between strings close to the frame as compared to the centre of the array.
During play any one string tends to become displaced from its normal linear position in the array, as the strings come into frequent and often violent contact with the ball. The effects of displaced strings are numerous. For instance strings may be displaced away from particular regions of the head resulting in an area which imparts a diminished impetus to the ball. Further an area with an excessive or inadequate number of strings due to string displacement may not return the ball in a predictable trajectory.
In the past, players of racquet sports have attempted to straighten displaced strings with their fingers. This method is time consuming and may not return all the strings to their correct position. Furthermore the strings tend to collect body oils and dirt from the player's fingers which may act to abrade and degrade the strings, particularly catgut strings.
British Pat. Specification No. 8,600,316 describes a racquet string straightener having a movable row of teeth, each tooth having a complicated set of notches at its outer end. To use the device of this specification the teeth are manually adjusted to an appropriate distance along the length of the device to receive respective cross-wise strings. When a single lengthwise string is pressed into the notches of the row of teeth, at that string is straightened. As can be seen the device of this British Specification requires a certain amount of manual dexterity to use and in any case can only straighten a single string at any one time.
It is an object of the present invention to ameliorate the difficulties faced by racquet sport players by providing a device which may simply and quickly restore at least several of the strings of a racquet to their correct array.